LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Stock Market Follows the Election

The stock market is singing the GOP blues. Of course, they'll say
they inherited it. Nonetheless ... stocks have declined when
Republicans took over, going back a century or so.

Republicans are business-friendly, so the Wall Street
Journal types have some explaining to do. The Market is the Voice
of God, so what's up, guys?

They haven't got a clue, but the explanation is obvious if you
understand how capitalism works.

Free enterprise is a marvelous generator of economic growth, but
it has a fatal flaw: The rich get richer while the rest of us run up
bigger credit card debts in order to survive. At the very bottom,
more and more people are homeless.

Folks with no money can't buy the stuff the rich guys want to sell
(made in China). Business stagnates. We get a recession.

Elect Democrats and they administer the remedy: Tax the rich to
finance programs that create jobs and benefit everybody. That's good
for business, so the stock market goes up.

Elect Republicans and they cut the rich folks' taxes while
scuttling government programs. Folks don't have money to spend. The
Market goes South. Perhaps it is the Voice of God.

KEN CHAMPNEY
Yellow Springs, Ohio

Spread the Money Around

In the spring of 1949 I read a book entitled Les Miserables
by Victor Hugo. It was the story of an 18-year-old boy who had a
sister who was a widow with four children. Neither the boy nor his
sister could get a job, there was no welfare, nor any charity. The
boy simply could not stand to see his sister's children starve to
death in front of his eyes so he stole a loaf of bread. For this he
got sentenced to seven years in prison. While he was in prison the
thoughts of his sister and her children tormented him even more, so
he escaped. Now the big thick book was about how the French
government assigned a detective inspector to spend full time for the
next 40 years trying to catch this notorious bread theft. It did not
matter to France that the man had become a successful businessman,
paid a lot of taxes, contributed a lot to his community, and was in
fact a pillar of the community.

The thieves in the 1950 Brinks robbery in Boston got away with
$2.7 million. A few years later the producers of a movie telling
about this famous robbery spent $18 million making the movie. Now we
are told that the FBI spent $25 million trying to catch the Brinks
robbers.

In 1980 there was a cost of living adjustment (COLA) on Social
Security benefits. If the same COLA had been on the minimum wage it
would now be well over $8 per hour. Recently the government informed
us that if a man had a wife he would need to earn $7.60 per hour in
order to get himself up to the poverty level. The current minimum
wage of $5.15 per hour is not enough to get a single person up to the
poverty level.

The US Senate recently gave itself a $4,000 raise making the third
$4,000 raise in three years. On the one hand when you read about what
the CEOs pay themselves you think our members of Congress should be
getting $200,000 per year, then you wonder what kind of person can
give himself a raise and leave poor people below the poverty level.
If we have 12 million people working at the minimum wage and if they
work 2,000 hours per year then a dollar raise in the minimum wage
would be $24 billion for the year. When these people get this money
they spend it immediately because they are always behind. This
improves business and since the Republicans own most of the
businesses they are the biggest beneficiaries of an increase in the
minimum wage. It certainly doesn't cost the business owner anything
because the price of any product includes all labor cost.

Yours truly,

ROBERT PARNELL
Waco, Texas

No Worries About Monopolies

So, we're now looking at a US monopoly policy directed by a
right-wing loonie named John Ashcroft -- a defeated senator from
Missouri. I've complained long and loud about the weakness of
Clinton's heads of Justice's Antitrust Division -- a senator's wife,
Anne Bingamon, followed by Joel Klein -- a pygmy compared to, say,
FDR's Thurman Arnold of 1937.

The sin of Clinton/Klein was that it couldn't muster the
political/intellectual energy to adequately OPPOSE monopoly. Now we
have a new order of magnitude in wretched monopoly policy:
Bush/Ashcroft actually BELIEVES in it. Their Antitrust Division will
revert to the old Reagan policy: PROMOTE monopoly -- using all the
resources of the US government.

Hopefully, those other 70 or so nations that have recently enacted
antitrust laws will have better sense than to follow America on its
latest Bush/Ashcroft rush over the pro-monopoly cliff.

Dreaming WWJD

It is indeed extremely gratifying that we will now have a
born-again president in the White House. I am sure the majority of
our Congress are also Christians. (I don't know of any atheists in
Congress.) With this combination, I am looking forward to great
things happening in the United States during the next four years.
(Hopefully, the next eight years.) I am hopeful that before any
presidential proclamation is promulgated or any law is passed, that
our Christian president and Congress will first ask the question,
"What would Jesus do"?

One of the first actions I expect our Congress and President will
take is the ratification and signing of the treaty to ban land mines.
I know that Jesus is sad about all those old land mines in Cambodia
(the land of amputees) and other countries, killing and maiming
women, men and children. Yes, He would definitely approve the ban on
the manufacture and use of land mines. Nor would Jesus think that a
Christian country should have enough nuclear bombs to vaporize the
world. I know that our Christian president will put a high priority
on dismantling these and other weapons of mass destruction. Our
Savior is not the God of War. He is THE PRINCE OF PEACE. The United
States exports more weapons than all other countries combined. I have
no doubt that President Bush and our Congress will address this
problem expeditiously. No sirree, Bob, our born again president and
Christian Congress will not tolerate God's country being the world's
merchant of death!

We will now take a look at what to expect from this Christian
administration in the domestic realm. Poverty will become
non-existent. No child will be left out. The huge gap between the
rich and poor will vanish. There will be full employment, and
everyone will receive a living wage. No one will be without the best
of medical care. Crime will become non-existent. Like the walls of
5

, the prisons will come tumbling down. We can also expect that
this country will become a model of environmental stewardship.

I know that there are skeptics out there that won't believe any of
the above. But just remember that in Mathew chapter 19, verse 26,
Jesus said, "With God all things are possible."

Just dreaming!

DAN & BEVERLY SWEETON
Lebanon, TN 37087
e-mail: dsweeton@aol.com

Talk About Class and Race

Thanks for your piece entitled "Corporations beat voters again"
[2/1/01 PP]. I am a politically active white
working-class man from the South (I support Ralph Nader). I've had
literally thousands of conversations about politics with other
working class South Carolinians. Here is the reason that the
political left can never make inroads with the white working class in
the South: because our political language is focused mostly on race,
sex, and sexual orientation. Even when Democratic politicians mention
class (which in itself is rare), white working class people perceive
this as being code language for racial oppression and immediately
quit listening. They don't feel responsible for racial discrimination
since they themselves have little or no control over their own lives,
and have no power to discriminate against anyone. They think it is
hypocritical for people more prosperous than themselves to blame the
white working class when white working class culture, vernacular,
income, and worldview are much closer to black culture than are
middle class attitudes toward black culture. This is tantamount to
saying that the white working class experience is much closer to the
black experience than is the college educated middle class
experience. This sentiment reverberates through much of the US.

Here is my position: Let's start talking about class and race.
Racism and sexism are special forms of classism. When we confront
classism, we simultaneously undermine racism and sexism. A wonderful
byproduct of this approach is that it unites the majority of the
people in the country! Majority equals real political change. I am
constantly trying to proselytize with the Green message, but this is
difficult since working-class white people see current liberal
political language as being anti-white. They don't see where their
skin color has given them any special advantages. They live in near
penury, as did their ancestors. Statements that are perceived as
being anti-white make guaranteed Republican votes.

Let's create a new kind of affirmative action -- one based not
just on race but also on class. This would sell to white working
class people. Let's remove any race baiting in our party platforms.
The Republicans did this years ago. Let's legitimately invite
working-class whites into sharing power. Let's create a national
vernacular concerning class. When we talk about oppression, let's
include class oppression. Let's propose new legal language with a
prefixed and annotated expression: no person should be discriminated
against based on class, race, sex, or sexual orientation. We need to
make sure that working-class whites know that we are trying to help
them -- not trying to take their jobs away or blame them. If we are
going to enumerate other groups as being victims, then working-class
whites need to be included. If we do these things then we can easily
create a new progressive majority. If we keep doing the same old
things, we'll never again have a clear political majority, and we
will continue having a deeply, deeply divided country. Fellow
progressives, please think about this.

MARK WHITTINGTON
Columbia SC

Shame on Nader Voters

The claim that Nader didn't cause the Gore loss is false on its
face: Nader got 97,000 votes in Florida. Were you paying attention to
reality rather than being so drunk on someone else's cork (Nader's)
as to be focused solely on Nader's pie-in-the-sky scam, you'd
recognize that 97,000 votes would have put Gore unquestionably over
the top.

Accept and admit that those facts, else your "advice" to Democrats
on how to defeat Bush's agenda goes beyond gratuitous to insult to
intelligence. You and your Naderites made all sorts of predictions --
none of which came true. Now you expect to be credible in that
arena?

The best thing you blindly naive Nader groupies can do is sit down
and shut up: we long-time progressive activists are not going to join
you in your self-denial of the fact that you have every reason to be,
at minimum, embarrassed at your arrogance and the results of your
misguided politics.

JOSEPH NAGARYA
Boston, Mass.

Nothing Wrong with Ralph

What Went Wrong With Nader ["What Went Wrong for Ralph?" by
Micah Sifry, 1/1-15/01 PP] was not being allowed to debate
on television -- the most critical tool for further indoctrinating
the American Sheeple. The unread sheeple are fed misinformation,
disinformation, omission and outright lies by our so-called "liberal
media" -- the corporate world in sheep's clothing.

Nader did everything right -- speaking magnificently to the
concerns of all of us. But he had little or no media coverage. He
would have won the election, if allowed to debate the corporate
military stooges. And the final insult -- to have a spoiler label
laid on him by nincompoops, who want to discredit him.

George Bush and Al Gore are the real spoilers of world peace,
environmental preservation, universal health care for Americans,
economic, justice for all. Both support increased military
expenditures, at the expense of social issues. Both support
widespread use of the military to control and run the rest of the
world, which our corporations own. Both support bombing massacres of
the few brave countries who attempt to protect their own resources
and people. And in the name of installing democracy -- whom do they
think they are kidding? Other countries hate us for our ongoing
criminal actions to increase corporate profits and power. It is time
to get off the insane Star Wars, military machine and take care of
our millions of poverty-ridden Americans here at home, by dismantling
the War Machine.

One positive thought in conclusion: The election of Strongman Bush
and his military regime may, hopefully, ignite a long-needed
revolutionary turn-a-round for the millions of disenfranchised
oppressed Americans. Wake up sheeple and read!

ALICE KEISER GRETH
Bend, Ore.

Populist Music is Out There

While agreeing with Rob Patterson's article ["Populist Music,
or Lack of It," 1/1-15/01 PP] on the lack of Populist/Political
Music in today's culture in principle, I must take exception to it's
tone and implications.

Mr. Patterson leaves one with the impression that this genre of
music has literally died, and that there isn't anything being
produced. Further it would seem that if he is to be believed, the
only thing that is being currently released worth hearing is coming
from the re release or remastering of earlier "icons" of political
statement. This most certainly isn't so.

The genre of Populist/Political Music based in roots folk is alive
and well. Mr. Patterson is simply going to have to stop looking to
major or established labels, (even the cultlike/trendy "acceptable"
small ones), if he wishes to find it.

As a performer, singer/songwriter who lives almost exclusively in
this genre of music, I can assure him that the art is alive and well.
The problem, it seems to me, is that the content of the message has
changed, and become a little unacceptable and "politically incorrect"
to the same folks who were at the fore of the folk explosion of the
sixties. Therefore a bizarre form of censorship exists. If you don't
agree with the message and are politically active yourself, and you
happen to run a record label, then obviously you will not release or
sign the artist.

In the late sixties, the greed of the record labels caused them to
record and release many folk based acts that would not normally have
gotten attention, Bob Dylan among them. The record labels didn't care
what the message was, they cared only for the bottom line: WILL IT
SELL TO THE KIDS.

Those kids have grown up, fed on Dylan, CSNY, and others, and have
become much more politically aware than the previous typical record
execs were. They are looking for more of the same message and will
not find it. The message has changed and they have become their
fathers.

Corporate America and big business is no longer the number one
threat to the freedom of the American people. They are. George
Orwell's Big Brother is here ... We have seen the enemy and he is
us.

The music is there, the listeners are not. And if they are, the
music is not getting to them. You cannot stop the flow indefinitely
though. If a political sentiment strikes a strong enough chord in the
people, it will become commercially profitable. And when it does, the
record labels will sell it. Greed is a wonderful thing.

Mr. Patterson should check out sites such as "In Music We Trust"
or better yet go to Google and search under "Clayton Ellers ".